## (Elaborated by the Editorial Board of Iskra and Zarya)

Source: LS vol. II

LENIN.
AMENDMENTS TO THE AGRARIAN SECTION OF THE PROGRAM.

Against = for retention in the old form.
1) G. V. [Plekhanov] — 2) P. B. [Axelrod] — 3) V. I. [Zasulich] — 4) Berg. [Martov] — 5) A. N. [Potresov] — 6) Frey [Lenin] — for.

b) Remark by V. I. ZASULICH.
I am for this 3), and not for simple deletion. I understood from the start that the redemption payment should not be taken from the peasants, but from general state funds; one could still limit it further: to compensate for the cut-off lands in those cases where there is no possibility of collecting from the former owner and when the "cut-off" constitutes a large part of the property of the purchasing owner (meaning, give nothing to the rich). After all, we teach that the development of capitalism leads to ever greater calamities. Is it our business to demand confiscation of peasant lands in favor of large lessees? We cannot put forward such a program; it resembles Krivenko's and Mikhailovsky's "aiding moral turpitude."

v) Reply by G. V. PLEKHANOV.
You have forgotten that the redemption payment should be carried out from special sums collected in the form of a special tax on large landowner-nobles. I vote for retaining redemption payment under only the condition just indicated.

g) Rejoinder by LENIN.
The point is not what meaning the author of the remarks gives to it 4), but what STANDS in the program 5).

x) I.e., the article "The Agrarian Program of Russian Social-Democracy."
2) Words of N. G. Chernyshevsky concerning the redemption of '61.
3) From the markings on the manuscript it is evident that V. I. Zasulich had in mind here the proposal contained in point 5 of Lenin's proposal.
4) I.e., Plekhanov.
5) The meaning of this rejoinder will be clear if we take into account the following circumstance. In proposing his amendment concerning redemption, Vladimir Ilyich had in mind that text of the minimum program which had been elaborated in Munich (document No. 5, see p. 47). It contained nothing about a tax on large landholding. Plekhanov, on the other hand, in his reply had in mind the text elaborated in Zurich, where the words about redemption "at the expense of large noble landholding" were first inserted. From this it follows, among other things, that at the moment of writing his amendment Vladimir Ilyich had not yet seen the Zurich text.

At the Zurich conference Lenin was granted the right of public address with criticism of the program draft. Vladimir Ilyich did not use this. The program was published in the name of the editorial boards of Iskra and Zarya.

Below we print the text of the program draft as it appeared in No. 21 of Iskra, which came out on June 1 (14), 1902. In *italics* are printed those words and phrases which represent changes compared with the text elaborated at the Zurich conference (document No. 25). Almost all these changes are the result of written proposals from G. V. Plekhanov, reprinted above in the same document No. 25. So that the reader has the possibility to compare the printed draft below with the commission draft, we provide in footnotes the words of the commission draft which have been replaced in the present draft with the words given in italics.

25.
DRAFT PROGRAM OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-
DEMOCRATIC LABOR PARTY.
(Elaborated by the Editorial Boards of Iskra and Zarya.)

The development of exchange has established such close ties between all peoples of the civilized world that the great liberation movement of the proletariat was bound to become and long ago became international.

Regarding its Party as one of the detachments of the world army of the proletariat, Russian social-democracy *pursues) the same ultimate aim toward which the social-democrats of all other countries strive.

This ultimate aim is determined by the character of bourgeois society and the course of its development. The main peculiarity of such a society is commodity production on the basis of capitalist relations of production, under which the most important and significant part of the means of production and the circulation of commodities belongs to a small 2) number of persons, while the vast majority of the population consists of proletarians and semi-proletarians, compelled by their economic position constantly or periodically to sell their labor power, i.e., to enter service as wage-workers with capitalists and through their labor to create the income of the upper classes of society.

*) In the commission draft it read: "Russian social-democrats pursue."
2) In the commission draft it read: "relatively small."

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DRAFT PROGRAM OF THE R.S.-D.L.P.

The sphere of dominion of capitalist relations of production expands more and more as the constant improvement of technique, increasing the economic significance of large enterprises, leads to the displacement 1) of small independent producers, converting 2) part of them into proletarians, narrowing 3) the role of the rest in the socio-economic life, and 4) in places placing 5) them in more or less complete, more 6) or less obvious, more 7) or less severe dependence on capital.

This same technical progress moreover gives entrepreneurs the possibility of applying the labor of women and children on an ever larger scale in the process of production and circulation of commodities. But since, on the other hand, it leads to a relative decrease in the need 8) of entrepreneurs for living labor of workers, the demand for labor power necessarily lags behind its supply, whereupon there increases the dependence of wage labor on capital and there rises the level of its exploitation.

Such a state of affairs within bourgeois countries and the constantly intensifying mutual 9) rivalry on the world market make the sale of commodities produced in constantly increasing quantities 10) ever more difficult. Overproduction, manifesting itself in more or less acute industrial crises, which are followed by more or less prolonged periods of industrial stagnation, represents 11) an inevitable consequence of the development of productive forces in bourgeois society 12). Crises and periods of industrial stagnation, in turn, further impoverish small producers, further increase 13) the dependence of wage labor on capital, and even more rapidly lead to the relative or even absolute worsening of the position of the working class.

Thus, the improvement of technique, signifying an increase in labor productivity and the growth of social wealth, conditions in bourgeois society an increase in social inequality, an increase in the distance between the propertied and the propertyless, and the growth of insecurity of existence, unemployment, and all kinds of privations for ever broader strata of the laboring masses.

But as there grow and develop all these contradictions inherent in bourgeois society 1), there also grows the discontent of the laboring and exploited mass 2) with the existing order of things, there grows the number and cohesion of the proletarians 3) and their struggle with their 4) exploiters is intensified. At the same time, the improvement of technique, concentrating the means of production and circulation 5) and socializing the process of labor in capitalist enterprises, ever more rapidly and more rapidly creates the material possibility of replacing capitalist relations of production with socialist ones, i.e., 6) that social revolution 7) which represents the ultimate aim of all the activity of international social-democracy, as the conscious exponent of the class movement of the proletariat.

By replacing private property in the means of production and circulation with social property and introducing a planned organization of the socially-productive 8) process to ensure the well-being and all-round development of all members of society, the social revolution of the proletariat will destroy the division of society into classes and thereby liberate all oppressed humanity, since it will put an end to all forms of exploitation of one part of society by another 1).

A necessary condition of this social revolution is the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the conquest by the proletariat of such political power as will allow it to suppress all resistance of the exploiters.

Facing itself the task of making the proletariat capable of fulfilling its great historical mission, international social-democracy organizes it into an *independent political party, opposing all bourgeois parties, directs all manifestations of its class struggle, exposes to *) it the irreconcilable opposition of the interests of exploiters to the interests of the exploited, and clarifies to it the historical significance and necessary conditions of the forthcoming social revolution. At the same time, it reveals to 3) all the rest of the laboring and exploited mass the hopelessness of its 4) position in capitalist society and the necessity of social revolution in the interests of its own liberation from the oppression of capital. The party of the working class, social-democracy, calls into its ranks all strata of the laboring and exploited population, insofar as they pass over to the point of view of the proletariat.

On the path toward their common ultimate aim, determined by the dominion of the capitalist mode of production throughout the civilized world 5), social-democrats of different countries are compelled to set for themselves different immediate tasks, both because this mode of production is not everywhere developed to the same degree, and because its development in different countries takes place in a different socio-political milieu.

In Russia, where capitalism has already become the dominant mode of production 6), one encounters at every step relics of our old, pre-capitalist social order 7), which was based on the enserfment of the laboring masses to landowners, the state, or the head of state. As the most significant obstacles 1) to economic progress, these relics do not permit the all-round development 2) of the class struggle of the proletariat, contribute to the preservation and strengthening of the most barbarous forms of exploitation of the multimillion 3) peasantry by the state and the propertied classes, and keep the entire people in darkness and lack of rights.

The most significant of all these survivals and the most powerful bulwark of all this barbarism is tsarist autocracy. By its very nature it is hostile to any social movement and cannot but be the fiercest opponent of all the liberation strivings of the proletariat.

Therefore, the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party sets as its immediate political task the overthrow of tsarist autocracy and its replacement with a republic on the basis of a democratic constitution, ensuring:

1. Sovereignty of the people, i.e., the concentration of all supreme state power in the hands of a legislative assembly composed of representatives of the people.

2. Universal, equal, and direct suffrage in elections both to the legislative assembly and to all local organs *) of self-government for every citizen who has reached 20 years of age; secret ballot in elections; the right of every elector to be elected 3) to all representative assemblies; payment of popular representatives.

3. Inviolability of the person and dwelling of citizens.

4. Unlimited freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly, strikes, and unions.

5. Freedom of movement and occupation.

6. Abolition of estates and complete equality of all citizens regardless of sex, religion, and race.

7. Recognition of the right to self-determination for all nations comprising the state.

8. Granting every *) citizen the right to prosecute any official before the court without complaint to the authorities.

9. Replacement of the standing army with universal arming of the people.

10. Separation of church from state and school from church.

11. Free and compulsory general and professional education for all children of both sexes up to 16 years of age. Supply of poor children with food, clothing, and educational materials at state expense.

As a fundamental condition for the democratization of our 2) state economy, the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party demands: the abolition of all indirect taxes and the establishment of a progressive tax on incomes and inheritances.

In the interests of protecting the working class from physical and moral degeneration, as well as in the interests of developing its 3) ability to carry on the liberation struggle, the party demands:

1. Limitation of the working day to 8 hours daily for all wage workers.

2. Establishment by law of a weekly rest day, continuously lasting 4) no less than 36 hours, for wage workers of both sexes in all branches of the national economy.

3. Complete prohibition of overtime work.

4. Prohibition of night labor (from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.) in all branches of the national economy, except those where it is absolutely necessary for technical reasons approved by workers' organizations.

5. Prohibition of entrepreneurs from using the hired labor of children under 16 years of age.

6. Prohibition of women's labor in those branches where it is harmful to the female organism; liberation of women in childbirth from work for 2 weeks before and 4 weeks after childbirth.

7. Establishment by law of civil liability of employers for the full or partial loss of workers' capacity for labor occurring as a consequence of accidents or harmful conditions of production, and liberation of the worker from the obligation to prove that this 1) loss occurred through the fault of the employer 2).

8. Prohibition 3) of payment of wages in goods; establishment of a weekly payment period under all labor contracts and payment of wages during working hours.

9. Issuance of state pensions to elderly workers.

10. Increase in the number of factory inspectors; appointment of women inspectors in those branches where women's labor predominates; supervision by workers' representatives elected and paid by the state over the enforcement of factory laws, as well as 4) over the setting of piece rates and inspection 5) of goods.

11. Supervision 6) by organs of local self-government, with the participation of workers' elected representatives, over the sanitary condition of residential premises provided to workers by entrepreneurs, as well as 7) over the internal management of these premises and the conditions under which they are rented out — for the purpose of protecting wage workers from the interference of entrepreneurs in their life and activities as private persons and citizens.

12. Establishment of a properly organized comprehensive 8) sanitary supervision in all enterprises employing hired labor, and free medical aid for workers at the expense of employers.

13. Extension of factory inspection supervision to all branches of the national economy and to all enterprises employing hired labor, not excluding state enterprises.

14. Establishment of criminal liability of employers 9) for violation of laws concerning the protection of labor.

15. Prohibition of entrepreneurs from making monetary deductions 1) from wages on whatever pretext and for whatever purpose (fines, inspection 2) and such).

16. Establishment in all branches of the national economy of trade courts composed equally of representatives of workers and entrepreneurs.

17. Imposition on organs of local self-government of the obligation to establish 3) mediation offices for the hiring of local and migrant workers (labor exchanges) in all branches of production with the participation in their management of representatives of workers' organizations.

With the aim of eliminating the relics of serfdom, weighing heavily as a burden on the peasants 4), and in the interests of free development of class struggle in the countryside, the party will strive for:

1. Abolition of redemption payments and obrok payments, as well as all obligations currently falling on the peasantry as a taxable estate.

2. Abolition of collective responsibility and all laws restricting the peasant in his 5) disposition of his land.

3. Return to the people of monetary sums taken from it in the form of redemption and obrok payments; confiscation for this purpose of monastic properties 6) and appanage estates, as well as taxation with a special tax of the lands of large landowner-nobles 7) who took advantage of the redemption loan; conversion of the sums obtained in this way into a special popular fund for the cultural and charitable needs of rural communes.

4. Establishment of peasant committees: a) for the return to rural communes (through expropriation or — in case the lands passed from hand to hand — purchase by the state at the expense of large noble landholding) of those lands which were cut off from peasants upon the abolition of serfdom and serve in the hands of landowners as an instrument for their enslavement;

1) In the commission draft it read: "the indicated loss."
2) In the commission draft it read: "employer."
3) In the commission draft it read: "Prohibition."
4) In the commission draft it read: "establishment of supervision over the enforcement of factory laws through the mediation of workers' elected and state-paid representatives, as well as supervision of elected workers' [representatives]."
5) In the commission draft it read: "inspection."
6) In the commission draft it read: "Establishment of supervision."
7) In the commission draft it read: "as well as."
8) In the commission draft it read: "comprehensive sanitary."
9) In the commission draft it read: "liability."

1) In the commission draft it read: "deductions."
2) In the commission draft it read: "inspection."
3) In the commission draft it read: "institute."
4) In the commission draft it read: "on the peasantry."
5) In the commission draft it read: "all."
6) In the commission draft it read: "monastic."
7) In the commission draft it read: "noble-landowners."